Entertainment

Europe is home to the best club soccer in the world, thanks in no small part to powerful domestic leagues, like Germany's Bundesliga and Italy's Serie A. But there's no debating which two associations reign supreme on the continent: the English Premier League and Spain's La Liga.

The EPL and La Liga regularly send top clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid deep into the international Champions League tournament. One could argue that either the EPL or La Liga rules Europe in a given year. But which league is winning on the social web?

La Liga teams have more Twitter followers than their EPL counterparts, but EPL fans are more active, mentioning their teams in 81.5 million tweets over the past year compared to 65.2 million for Spanish clubs. On Facebook, EPL teams just barely out-Like La Liga's league-wide total, but the numbers are essentially equal. La Liga's signature match between Barcelona and Madrid also drew about four times as much Twitter chatter as last year's Manchester Derby between United and City.

La Liga superstars Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid dominate the social buzz, however, compared to Manchester United's new dynamic duo of Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie. Messi and Ronaldo were mentioned in over 24 million tweets over the past year, compared to just under 9 million for Rooney and van Persie.

Sports website TheScore used data from social analytics company Sysomos to pull all these stats and more to produce the infographic below. Check it out for a snapshot of how the EPL and La Liga compare on the social web.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.